Wednesday, July 23, 2008

normalcy

I have wanted to blog for awhile now, but I wasn’t sure what I could share about last week’s events that wouldn’t raise any red flags or cause me to get kicked out of the country. I am also tired of thinking about last week. Last week was particularly cruel, a week where the reality of “Darfur” hit very close to home and caused me to experience some of the first real stress I have had since my post began. The odd thing is that nothing really happened to me. In the end, it was a relatively calm week (with one very serious incident involving a friend of mine near the border). Even so, I had my bags packed all week long ready to go at any moment. But the moment never came and in the end all of my possessions ended up back in their cupboard where they belong, at least for now.

All the insanity of last week left me craving for a few days of normalcy, a few days where I can crawl out of bed, shower, have my coffee and go to the office like a normal person. And luckily for me this is how this week seems to be going...two days of uneventful activity. Things seem to be running as usual, and I am so grateful for that.

In other news, I have developed a very weird and gross looking burn-like wound on my neck from just below my chin to my collarbone. It is so disgusting to look at, and I actually feel bad for those around me because while I get to walk around not looking at it, they have no choice but to try to ignore it and look in my eyes. We went to a party this evening at CRS (a going away for a few people including my co-worker Darren), and I took a scarf with me expecting to weave it around my neck to try to hide it (for everyone else’s benefit… and I was a little shy about showing it off). In the end, though, as people trickled in I ended up not reaching for the scarf and just talking about it instead. I suppose it served as a fair warning to people, watch out this could crawl into your bed and bite you too!

It just poured tonight while we were at CRS. It was the hardest rain we had had in quite a few days, and we were all seeking shelter and huddled together by the food trying not to get soaking wet. The evening rains here can be so refreshing, and even when it rains hard I still love it.

I had brought my iPod and after a little playlist surfing we landed on my “Chill” mix. So we listened to Ceu, and I thought of how I had heard this CD and thought it would be perfect background for a party. I never thought it would be used in Sudan….I was looking around the room and I thought about how lucky I was, to capture this moment in time. Last week taught me not to take any of this for granted and I tried not to. Who knows when or if we could have another crazy week and then we would all be gone again….

As the gathering wound down we heard that our Tico driver couldn’t make it back to pick us up. The heavy rains had filled the wadis in town and so they were now impassable by car. This left us a few options: we could stay at CRS, we could cross the wadi and stay at OCHA, or we could walk. The decision was to walk, so our little group of Kawadjas (there were 5 of us) set off with the CRS guard to cross the wadi. We weren’t sure how high the water would be, but it ended up not being so bad. I rolled up my pant legs and took off my flip flops (flip flops! Clearly I was not prepared to walk….) and stepped into the water in my bare feet. It actually wasn’t so bad, the current wasn’t too strong and the guard was guiding the best way across. I wasn’t paying attention, confident I would navigate the wadi fine, when an unexpected dip caused me to lose my balance and I found myself in water thigh deep. I let out several squeals as I found myself in deeper water, trying to just get to the other side already! Once I crawled out of the water, I heard Bill call from the other side of the wadi “Way to be graceful under pressure Leslie!” to which I of course laughed. Being graceful in opportune moments is something I frequently fail at, and God often uses moments like these to keep my pride in check.

We dropped off the OCHA folks and borrowed a torch from them for the rest of the walk. I really wasn’t too concerned about walking home. It was dark, the town was quiet and people were milling around. However, as we walked Darren said several things like, “If anything happens, just run for the mosque and cover your head” that concerned me. I was in no condition to run (flip flops, hello!), and am a slow runner anyway. So I said a couple quick prayers and we continued without a problem. It was nice to walk home at night in Geneina, though I know with Darren leaving I’m not likely to do it again. I don’t imagine a white female walking alone at night in sopping wet pants from the wadi would be a very good thing!

No comments: